Six Portraits of Uzumaki Naruto
by frustratedfruitloop
Summary: The Endless, minus one, on Naruto. One-shot Sandman / Naruto.


Disclaimer: Sandman and the Endless are the property of the awesome Neil Gaiman. I am only borrowing pieces of the greatness. Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto.

Summary: The Endless (minus one) on Uzumaki Naruto. Oneshot Sandman / Naruto.

**Six Portraits of Uzumaki Naruto**

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Uzumaki Naruto has strayed into Delirium's domain quite a few times (she never takes note). If her siblings ask her to describe him, she would say he's got purple eyes (or were they blue? how about blue-purple eyes?) and thick dark whiskers on his cheek (like a fox! or a cat, or a bear, or a dog—but Barnabas doesn't have markings like those—she's checked).

He never stays long in her domain, and she isn't always there to see him. But there are times when his madness burns like a bright flame in the darkness, and there's something scary in the way she is attracted to it (like a flutterby, or those proverbial flying thingies her sister-brother, Desire, always alludes to). He isn't even mad anyway. There's just something inside him that's wild and angry, crazy from being cooped up for so long, something that hungers for blood and is willing to drive him insane to taste it.

But Naruto, she learns, will never allow that.

.

Despair has been waiting a long time to see who this Uzumaki person is.

All she has ever seen in her mirrors are brief flashes of yellow and blue, and a momentary glimpse of a face that could have belonged to frankly anyone who had blonde hair and blue eyes.

Much later, it will occur to her that these brief glimpses are all she needs to understand who Naruto is.

.

Naruto, perhaps, is something of a permanent fixture in Desire's domain. Desire may or may not know this; he-she is far too busy toying with the petty emotions of mortals. Desire loves watching their little love squabbles, watching them squirm, fully intoxicated with want.

The blonde's desire is like a forest fire; he wants like a parched man in a desert thirsting for water—no, more than that. Desire grows easily bored with him, whose emotions he-she cannot play like a fine-tuned instrument. Everything he-she does is like adding fuel to the flame, feeding oxygen to that all-consuming fire.

Uzumaki Naruto has a dream Desire cannot touch.

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Naruto is no poet, no artist, no storyteller. Thus he goes largely ignored in the Dream King's domain, and has never had the opportunity to meet the Lord Shaper.

He dreams of the mundane, the simple, everyday things people tend to ignore. He dreams of eating noodles swirling in a large bowl, many bowls. He dreams of a pink-haired girl and a dark-haired boy and a white-haired masked man—in his dreams, they are smiling. Well, he and the pink-haired girl are smiling, the other boy is trying to look uninterested and the man's smile may or may not be hiding beneath the mask. He dreams of a place called home, hidden under the leaves, of four, or five, or perhaps six faces carved into a mountain.

Morpheus understands that Uzumaki Naruto is a man of action, and his dream is not a dream but a goal, and it is unlikely that their paths will cross. But he does want to get to know the mortal that his older sister is so fond of.

.

Death likes Naruto, but then again, Death likes everyone.

She likes his spunky attitude, his sunny outlook on life, his unrepentant love of orange. He is a beacon of life in their death-filled world, and it makes her smile to see him a step closer to his goal—although she admits she sees him far more often than she would like, but such is his life and she does not begrudge him for it.

She can't wait to take his hand, and have a nice long chat about what was it again? Ah, yes, orange as the anti-emo color.

However, that won't be for many, many years, but that's okay. Death is no stranger to waiting; she sees everyone anyway, in the end.

.

Naruto wanders around Destiny's garden with purposeful strides and ambitious eyes.

That he is destined for greatness is a given. That he is making his own path in that labyrinthine growth may be right. Or he might be walking a predetermined path, and that may also be right.

Only Destiny knows and his lips are tightly sealed as he watches the blonde take another turn in his garden, looking to the future with bright blue eyes.

.

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_Note:_

_I wasn't able to contact Destruction for an interview. Well, I'm afraid I haven't really grasped his character well enough to write him. Not that I can claim the same for the rest of the Endless. I hope I haven't (thoroughly) butchered Gaiman's amazing creations._

_Inspired by _platedlizard's_ comment on Sandman being one of the easiest fandoms to cross over with. Which is true, if you can handle the characters well enough._

_I do hope you enjoyed reading it as I had fun writing it. Interestingly enough, I had the least trouble with Delirium, Despair and Destiny—the characters I tend not to pay attention to. (And maybe that's the reason, eh?) Constructive criticism is scary, but lack of improvement is even scarier._


End file.
